A rude awakening... literally!

Increasingly I find it difficult to go back to sleep if I've woken up or been woken up in the 'middle of the night'.  Sometimes I wake up at 4am, 4.30am, 5am. Is this just aging, my body changing, the birds singing, or some disturbance outside that I'm too bleary-eyed to investigate?

Sometimes I woken by my husband's early start - a couple of times a month he's in the shower at 4am so he can catch the first flight to Dublin, or Amsterdam.  The shower's located next to our room, so I can hear the patter of the water splashing down as he runs it to get the right temperature.

This morning, at 4.30am I struggled to identify what the noise was and where it was coming from.  Eventually, although it must have only been seconds rather than minutes, I realised that Phoebe's radio was on, and seemed to be increasing in volume, playing 'We are the Champions' by Queen.  Grrrrrr.  I put my light on, went to her room, put her light on and found the source of the noise.  'What????' said Phoebe, sounding how I felt!  I turned the radio off at the socket (couldn't find the on/off switch), and went back to bed.

The problem, when I wake up at this time in the morning, is that I can't get back to sleep.  I assume my usual 'go to sleep position', I'm the right temperature for me (nice and cosy), and I recognise that I'm still tired.  But I can't seem to drift off.

In the past I've said to myself, well I'll get up and do something, read the newspaper, do the ironing, but in recent months I've tried staying put and going back to sleep.  I must slip into a sort of dazed slumber, because when the alarm goes off at 6.45am, I'm very tired, very grumpy and very resentful.  Grrr.  Any ideas anyone?

We're in the final days of the Easter holidays.  Hooray!  They do seem to go on.  Yesterday I took the children to Buscot Park - a National Trust property fairly nearby, which we'd not properly visited. The last time we went we did the gardens and tea-room, so yesterday we did the house. I'd taken my camera, but when I came to take photos of the children in the gardens I found that I'd left the battery charging in the kitchen at home. Bother.

So to the House. What a treasure trove!  It's packed with antique furniture, art (old and new), objet's d'art and objet's de virtu, magnificent views, tromp d'oeil, and personal items of Lord Faringdon's family. However, the piece de resistance, the magnet, the thing that surprised me, moved me and blew my mind was 'the Saloon'.  I didn't realise how much I liked the pre-Raphaelites until I viewed 'The Legend of the Briar Rose' by Edward Burne-Jones.

Here's the Wikipedia link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Briar_Rose

It was a privilege to spend time looking at the lifesize, beautiful, romantic, colourful panels, and I'm looking forward to taking my parents next time they're down this way.  Don't know if it'll be to my Father's taste, but my Mother paints, and I'm sure she''ll like it as well.

Time for breakfast!  Have a good day y'all. Kat.

So it turns out....

... I've got high blood pressure.

Bit of a blow.  I'm not quite 47.  Better to know about it though.

Probably down to stress.  I don't add salt, and we only have crisps/chips 'n' dips every other week, if that.  I'm mainly vegetarian (don't like meat), but do eat fish.  I don't drink.  The rare occasions I've had a drink over last 3-4 years I've not enjoyed it and it's added to my 'menopausal' symptoms (headaches, insomnia, hot flushes, irritability), so, at Christmas, I stopped.  (Feel much better without it to be honest).  I do like a nice piece of cake and cup of tea.  I walk the dog (after school run, you've read about it in previous blogs of mine...).  I'm house-wife, mother, wife (not necessarily in that order).  I'm cutting down on dairy and increasing soya.

Looking back it has been quite stressful.

I mean, 2nd baby at age 40.  (Home birth, brilliant!).  Then, 11 months later, we moved house.  Not just moved house, moved area.  Totally.  Like 75miles distant from support network developed from 1st child's ante natal group.  Oh, yes, and I gave up my job (at RBG, Kew) to move here.  So lost that sense of self.  And we lost my lovely mother-in-law, Verity, to MND within 3 months of us moving house.  And I staggered on through the accumulated grief/stress/rage and doom, because, that's what you do.  When you're the mum.  When things need doing.  And looking back, it seems I don't remember much about it.  And that's probably for the best.

And then when Tom was old enough for school I started to work with my husband, and we struggled to keep the business going, but it sank, and that's when I started to blog, to try to find my voice again, to try to find myself.  And by and by, I went to see my GP, and we found my high blood pressure, and borderline anaemia, (explains why I've been sooooo tired for the last years, and why my feet are cold in bed), which can be addressed.

And looking back I didn't know it at the time, but it was quite stressful.  So, now I'm taking the pills, and some iron supplement, and feeling much better!  But the late nights of the weekend are catching up, and although I could quite happily have gone to bed an hour ago, there's still a hen up and I can't go to bed until they're safely tucked away and locked in for the night... 

We had a manic weekend again.  Richard over from Singapore (not seen him for 4 yrs or so), and other visitors as well.  Cooking, child-minding/entertaining, dog walking, laundry, car wash, work at the library, and not necessarily in that order!

No time to read Wolf Hall.  I'm still round about page 500.  This is why I daren't take long books out of the library.  I can read 10 pages a night, most, before I'm asleep!  And, on the insomnia front.  I think the stress levels are improving, and the sleep is as well.  To those fellow insomniacs out there, it may help to talk.  It did for me.

TTFN.  Kat  ;)

My English country garden, early May.